Why would there be a SEARCH result like this?

[ittybitnot]

Used Advanced Search

sterling cloisonne

US only

Sort TIME ENDING soonest

Enclosed is just a snippet but after going scrolling through and window shopping for quite a while, I came to a point where items that had NINE DAYS TO GO were followed by those with just hours.  Why would the sort suddenly be backwards?  any ideas? 

[nono-8172]

Are they sponsored listings?

[woodland_gnome]

Without seeing the whole page, my guess would be that the further down listings with a stated earlier ending are fixed-price listings, which never end until they sell or the seller gives up (the time remaining  display is the time until they automatically renew for another month, which means nothing to the potential buyer).  So they are tacked on to the bottom below the auction listings where the endtime does matter to the buyer.

[ittybitnot]

Are they sponsored listings?

@nono-8172 

 I thought of that, too. None are designated as such.  

[ittybitnot]

 which means nothing to the potential buyer)

@woodland_gnome 

Actually, as a potential buyer, I would have missed a whole lot that were ending in a few hours had I not continued down the list.   The first search results WERE of actual items that were ending in an hour or two.  Then they gradually increased by number of days, and after they hit "nine" the next batch was some more ending in the next hour or so.   I had to go out for a while, but I left the original search results up.  The first batch were "auctions" then BINS  that had nine days to run, then some more auctions that were ending in a couple of hours.  To me, this was a weird list.  I did not check auctions or BIN when I initially did the search. 

[woodland_gnome]

Again, you would NOT have missed the ones lower down because they were NOT ending in the next hour or so (AGAIN, unless someone bought them or the seller ended the item before then).  The endtime for fixed price listings (Buy It Now with or without Best Offer but without auction) is important to the seller only.  The endtime displayed is NOT an actual endtime, no fixed price listing ends at its stated endtime except by extreme coincidence that someone happens to buy it then or the seller cuts it very close in ending it before s/he gets charged for another month.    The listing does NOT actually end then, it will end earlier or later depending on the actions of buyers or the seller.  ALL fixed-price listings have been "Good 'til Cancelled" for several years now.

[ittybitnot]

 you would NOT have missed the ones lower down because they were NOT ending in the next hour or so

@woodland_gnome 

I must have taken a stupid pill or something today.  If you look at the screen shot, the top of the page says 9days left (as did the previous 8 or 10).  The next one says  ending in 1 hour.  Seems to me that the "ending in 1 hour ones" should have appeared BEFORE the ones that still had nine days to go. 

Oh well, this is eBay and it is what it is. 

[eburtonlab]

Seems to me that the "ending in 1 hour ones" should have appeared BEFORE the ones that still had nine days to go.

Not if the "1 hour" listings are fixed price listings. Fixed price listings run until sold or cancelled, and the "ending time" shown is actually just when the listing automatically relists.

Still listed:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133477345056

Currently when you sort by ending time, all the auctions with actual ending times appear before the fixed price listings with purely theoretical ending times.

This was not always the case, but that is how things sort now.

[woodland_gnome]

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@ittybitnot wrote:

 you would NOT have missed the ones lower down because they were NOT ending in the next hour or so

@woodland_gnome 

. . . The next one says  ending in 1 hour.  . . .

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It will NOT end in 1 hour, no matter what the display says.  eBay doesn't know when it will end, if ever,  because that is up to the seller and a hypothetical buyer who will at some time come in and buy it, ending the listing (unless it is a multiple-item listing but let's not get into that).  They have a field of endtime to fill in and need to sort items by endtime that they don't know when it will end, so the best they have to go on is the autorenew time (which is the least likely time that they will end, since if the seller wants to end it s/he will do so far enough before then that they don't miss the time and get charged for another month), and they put those "Good 'til Cancelled" listings at the bottom since buyers who search by endtime want to look at the ones that ARE scheduled to end soon, not the ones that will end whenever.